Harvey Janszen (July 11, 1946–May 10, 2021) was an accomplished amateur botanist and naturalist endeared to many in British Columbia’s natural history community. During his career as a botanist, Harvey collected ~3,000 vascular plant specimens from coastal BC (mostly within the southern Gulf Islands) and also curated comprehensive species checklists documenting the flora of the southern Gulf Islands, Saanich Peninsula, and San Juan Islands, as well as various other localities throughout the Salish Sea.
Among the documents that Harvey left us with in his passing are journals documenting his collection activities throughout the region, from 1973 to 2017. Many of these important historical baseline records have not been digitized and so remain unavailable to the scientific community. Through the Janszen Legacy Project, we are actively digitizing these records, including herbarium specimens, list records, and field notes. Just before Harvey passed away, he had reached out to botanists in the broader community to invite their review of the comprehensive species lists he dedicated his life to compiling for the region. Today, we are honouring his request by seeing through this work. In the following maps, we provide a summary of the progress of this initiative to date.
Journal documenting Harvey’s earliest collections, including a total of 1,929 specimens collected from Saturna Island, Galiano Island, Mayne Island, Samuel Island, Georgeson Island, Salt Spring Island, North and South Pender Islands, Wise Island, Parker Island, and the Ballingall Islets.
Journal documenting botanical surveys of Wise Island, Parker Island, Prevost Island, Saturna Island, North Pender, and Galiano Island (1981); North Pender Island, Denman Island, Hornby Island, Saturna Island, Sidney Island, Galiano Island (1982); Saturna Island, North Pender Island, San Juan Island, Waldron Island, Mayne Island (1983); Sidney Island, Orcas Island, Galiano Island, Lopez Island, Saturna Island (1984); Salt Spring Island and Saturna Island (1985); Saturna Island (1986); Saturna Island (1987–1989); Saturna Island, Denman Island, Mayne Island (1994); Cabbage Island (1995); Salt Spring Island, Isabella Islets, Saturna Island, Galiano Island, Mayne Island, North and South Pender Islands, Campbell River, Chilliwack River Provincial Park, Burns Bog, the UBC Research Forest, Squamish, Stanley Park, Burnaby Lake, Qualicum Beach, Texada, Powell River, Golden Ears Provincial Park, Somenos Lake, Wolf Creek, and Denman Island (1996). The journal includes collections numbering from 1,930 to 2,629.
Journal documenting botanical surveys of: Metchosin, Saturna, and Saltspring Is. (1996); Texada (’97); Saturna, Tumbo, and Valdes Island (’98); Texada and the Ecological Reserve on Saturna Island (’99); ctd. surveys of the Ecological Reserve on Saturna Is., and an inventory of Sidney Island (2000). The journal includes collection records numbering from 2,630 to 2,920, detailed population assessments and georeferenced localities for Woodwardia and various Ophioglossaceae, as well as field notes and species lists.
Field notes documenting floristic inventories of: the Saturna Island Ecological Reserve (1999–2000); Sidney Island and Salt Spring Island (2000–2001); surveys of Crassula connata at various localities (2002); continuing floristic inventories of Salt Spring Island, Saturna Island, Galiano Island, South Pender, and Hornby Island (2002); and Sidney Island, Hornby Island, Saturna Island, Tree Island, Valdes Island, Cowichan River, Mount Tzouhalem, Galiano Island, Salt Spring Island (2003). Collections numbering from 2,921–2,961.
Field notes documenting floristic inventories of Saturna Island (2003), Galiano Island and Saturna Island (2004), Saturna Island (2005), Saturna Island (2006), Saturna Island, Tumbo Island, and Strathcona Provincial Park (2007), Saturna Island (2008), Saturna Island and Strathcona Provincial Park, and Lake Helen Mackenzie (2010), Saturna Island (2013), and Valdes Island (2017)—including records of rare vascular plant species such as Meconella oregana, Ranunculus californicus, and Sanicula bipinnatifida. Collections numbering from 2,962–2,971.
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Harvey’s dataset establishes a critical baseline record of the vascular plant diversity of the southern Gulf Islands, Saanich Peninsula, and San Juans, which is vital for conservation, for our general understanding of the floristics of the region, and for the future understanding of ecological change.
Through this legacy project, we are working toward:
The digitization and deposition of a subset of Harvey’s vascular plant specimens (those that are not already deposited in research collections) in research collections at UBC
Digitization of field notes related to the dataset
Review and digitization of specimens already accessioned at the Royal BC Museum
The advancement of a curatorial process focused on the comprehensive species lists that Harvey has compiled, involving a community of botanists in British Columbia and Washington
The advancement of a biodiversity informatics working group focused on developing an online platform for hosting these data
Curation of this important floristics dataset to DarwinCore standards for publication in an open access data depository
We thank the following individuals for coming together to honour the life and legacy of Harvey Janszen:
Geraldine Allen, Antranig Basman, Ryan Batten, Eleanor Brouard-John, Adolf Ceska, Quentin Cronk, Ian Cruickshank, Marta Donovan, Peter Dunwiddie, Matt Fairbarns, David Giblin, Pam Janszen, Linda Jennings, Mike Lavender, Pippi Lawn, Frank Lomer, Terry Ludwar, Kendrick Marr, Andy MacKinnon, Adam Martin, Emma Menchions, James Miskelly, Jenifer Penny, Hans Roemer, Andrew Simon, Angela Wood, and Alexander Wright.
This project generously supported by the Canadian Institute for Ecology and Evolution and the Institute for Multidisciplinary Ecological Research in the Salish Sea